Immemorial
by megicci
Summary: Orianna and Cass bump into each other in a hallway and discuss, briefly, memories. One-shot, light by that I mean basic, and by basic I mean BABBY'S FIRST PHILOSOPHY READING philosophical/thinking elements.


Orianna didn't understand. She didn't understand why all those around her insisted she wasn't human. She was; she felt it and lived it. The memories that silently swirled throughout her mind, running in parallel to her current experiences, like multi-threading, surely were true. She remembered it keenly: Her father's smile, his encouraging words, his vigil in raising her, and the fantastical gadgets he would present to her each birthday.

She remembered her sixth birthday, in which her father gave her a strange coiled object that would sway, dancing to the words she spoke. She remembered her fourteenth, the birthday she received a swirling disc for use as a weapon as a champion in the League of Legends – joining the League her longtime dream. And she remembered her seventeenth, the same birthday she woke up and felt herself stronger, felt her movements more precise, quicker. Surely birthdays symbolized growth, and only humans had that. Surely the development of her body was the same growth that humans had following training. She didn't understand. Those memories were definitely true. This was the only truth she accepted.

Cassiopeia slithered aimlessly down the hallways, lost in thought. She had just finished an examination regarding her "condition" to see if it affected her biology in any way that would negatively impact her performance on the fields. Of course, it didn't, and of course, Noxus didn't particularly care about her. It was for their gain. It didn't matter; there was nothing better to do. All she had known her life was bathed in luxury and... ah, diplomatic issues. Her new life, however, was different from what she felt she knew.

The gurgling liquids fighting to free themselves from the pit of her venom sac threatened to gush forth any second. She had to fight back a feeling of nausea perpetually. Every so often, the miasma would sting at her throat, bubbling upwards, and she had to swallow it down the wrong pipe, leaving her bedridden or excreting explosively for up to days. One of her most prided-upon aspects, her silken hair, was replaced with a scaly fan, as though she was a cobra, and her lower half was rough, covered in scales, and she still, despite a couple years of being in this condition, had difficulty maneuvering it. Needless to say, what she remembered contradicted heavily the present.

So Cassiopeia asked herselfif any of those memories were, in fact, real. She just barely avoided bumping into the occasional pedestrian during her meandering crawl, though eventually, she crashed into a certain lady of clockwork just staring off into space, her jittery movements giving away that she was thinking. After Cassiopeia rose (her head bumped against the hard steel of the clockwork girl), Orianna finally noticed that someone walked (slithered?) into her. The humanoid machine rotated her head a full 360 degrees before settling again on Cassiopeia, and she forced a friendly smile. Though, to be honest, her blank, seemingly endless hollows of eyes and twitching "lips" were disconcerting as all hell.

"Hello, Miss Cassiopeia," Orianna chimed, eager to form relationships in the League, having just arrived. "What brings you to the Northern Wing?"

The serpentine woman never really noticed that she had wandered into the wing in which the Freljordians and Piltoverians (who had somewhat of a distaste for Noxians) took quarter. While she was in too somber a mood to snap back, she still retorted rudely.

"It's none of your business," she hissed, ashamed at herself for not stopping to look exactly where she was going.

"Au contraire," Orianna chirped, her voice winding around itself, "I learned that from Fiora! Anyways, I heard you used to be a really pretty girl. With really pretty legs. What happened? Did your father put you back together improperly after a big fight?"

The Serpent's Embrace quieted and thought back to the events which led to her transformation. She obliged an answer. "You could say that, I guess." It _was_ her father who sent her to her doom, and the same father who only cast her a steely gaze and balked at her weakness when she clumsily crawled to his room crying. "What's it to you?"

Orianna herself was puzzled why she asked such a question. It was beyond formalities to ask something so personal; she had learned that much from the Turing tests her father performed on her. She jerked her head to the side with a start, tilting it quizzically. "I am confused."

She paused, her midsection rotating erratically. "Ah." An affirmative interjection marked the continuation of her line of thought. "Father put me back together once. I didn't feel different, but none of my friends came to see me anymore. When I joined the League of Legends, the summoners didn't look at me the same way my friends looked at me before I broke. My friends were kind, you know. I loved my life. I danced. I still do."

This resonated with Cassiopeia. Her eyes were someone downcast throughout this speech, but it definitely struck a chord with her. She wanted to hear more, and didn't know why. "So what's the problem?"

"Negative, Miss Cassiopeia. There is no problem. You, however, are troubled." Orianna's back arched and twisted in jerky motions before settling in a slightly hunched posture.

Cassiopeia knew this. It was obvious. But something kept her from just jabbing back with the sarcastic "No, duh." She swallowed, attempting to quell the venom rising in her chest. Or was that another feeling?

"Was it real?" she asked. "Were my memories real, or just a fantasy dream I had to make myself feel better? Am I confused? Please... I don't know anymore. You seem so sure on your past, despite being _different_. Is my past the truth?"

Orianna smiled gingerly. It was the closest thing to a natural smile Cassiopeia had seen her make, though, to be frank, Cassiopeia didn't see her very often. The Lady of Clockwork answered in an enigmatic fashion. "I think, therefore I am. Do you not know that Piltoverian philosophy?"

The Lady of Clockwork curtsied. "I must leave now, lest I be late for my appointment with Sir Urgot. He wishes to inquire on a subject as well. Farewell, Miss Cassiopeia!" She walked off with her usual jerks and stutters, and Cassiopeia was left to think by herself.

"So it's what I make of it, huh..."

She frowned. "That doesn't help at all."


End file.
